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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27541522">Life Will Come And Find You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke'>Lady_Vibeke</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Cara Dune &amp; Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [39]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Family Feels, Force Afterlife (Star Wars), Gen, Light Angst, Romance, Special Encounters, Surprises, Temporary Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:55:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,000</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27541522</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He sat up to find his hands clean and empty when only a moment ago they had been full of Cara's trembling hands, and hot and sticky with his own blood. His helmet lay on his lap, a blank stare looking back at him as if to remind him there was no point in hiding himself, here. He was free. Free forever.<br/>He hadn't even said goodbye.<br/>Something like a sudden weight pulled at a string deep inside his chest; something tore. Cara and the kid were on their own, now. Din's hands clutched the sides of his helmet. He didn't feel free; only strangely loose, adrift, like there was nothing left to keep him grounded, to give him a place in the universe. He was nowhere and everywhere, now. Alone.<br/>Or maybe not.<br/>A shape started materialising in front of him, like fading mist revealing a landscape. It was a blur in shades of black and orange, at first, then Din blinked it into focus and what he saw didn't seem to make any sense.<br/>“Hey ya,” said a bright, feminine voice, sounding inexplicably cheerful. “About time you tuned in.”</p><p>[ Din dies. According to a random stranger, he's just being dramatic. ]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) &amp; Din Djarin, Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) &amp; Din Djarin &amp; Cara Dune, Din Djarin &amp; Cara Dune, Din Djarin &amp; Original Character(s), Din Djarin/Cara Dune</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Cara Dune &amp; Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [39]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709416</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>115</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Life Will Come And Find You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sudden silence was a blessing to his senses. He didn't know how he could see and taste and smell silence, how he could feel it in his bones, but it was there, all around him and inside. Blissful, peaceful silence. A sheer white silence that tasted like milk and smelled like a winter night.</p><p>He could hear ghosts of voices calling from somewhere—an outside that had no walls dividing it from any inside, and yet it felt as such. The voices were calling him, begging him. Someone was crying. He was too far away, now, to go back.</p><p>When he tried to catch his breath and felt the relief of the air filling his lungs, he knew at once it was over. The blood, the pain, the screams... they were elsewhere, now, somewhere he couldn't reach. The kid and Cara were on the other side with the empty shell of Din's body; Din was <em>here,</em> whatever and wherever <em>here</em> was. He didn't belong any longer to the world he had just left behind.</p><p>He sat up to find his hands clean and empty when only a moment ago they had been full of Cara's trembling hands, and hot and sticky with his own blood. His helmet lay on his lap, a blank stare looking back at him as if to remind him there was no point in hiding himself, here. He was free. Free forever.</p><p>He hadn't even said goodbye.</p><p>Something like a sudden weight pulled at a string deep inside his chest; something tore. Cara and the kid were on their own, now. Din's hands clutched the sides of his helmet. He didn't feel <em>free; </em>only strangely loose, adrift, like there was nothing left to keep him grounded, to give him a place in the universe. He was nowhere and everywhere, now. Alone.</p><p>Or maybe not.</p><p>Suddenly a shape started materialising in front of him, like mist slowly fading to reveal a secret landscape. It was a blur in shades of black and orange, at first, then Din blinked it into focus and what he saw didn't seem to make any sense.</p><p>“Hey ya,” said a bright, feminine voice, sounding inexplicably cheerful. “About time you tuned in.”</p><p>The figure standing before Din was a Mandalorian—a Mandalorian wearing an armour all too similar to his own, only lighter and smaller, molded over the graceful lines of a woman's body. He was positive he had never seen this person before, but she talked to him as if they'd already met. In a way, it sort of felt like they <em>had,</em> although Din couldn't have explained why.</p><p>“Do I know you?” he asked. He moved his helmet to lay it on the ground at his side, but somehow he found himself staring at an eerily accurate reflection of it—black lined with orange—as the stranger tilted her own helmet in a motion that Din found strangely familiar. He could read a smile beneath it.</p><p>“You <em>will,”</em> the woman said. “I know <em>you,</em> though.”</p><p>The defiant confidence in her voice was familiar, too, but in an entirely different way.</p><p>“How?”</p><p>The woman shrugged, “Don't worry about that. I'm here to send you back.”</p><p>Din was confused: there was no way back from this place: infinite ways in, no way out.</p><p>“Back to where?”</p><p>The stranger chuckled, “To life, silly.”</p><p>Din looked down at his hands—empty... so damn empty—and felt the subtle sting of tears rising to his eyes. He had to swallow a painful knot in his throat to argue, “But I'm already dead.”</p><p>He heard a <em>tsk.</em> The woman had brought her hands to her hips and was shaking her head at him.</p><p>“So dramatic. Come on, stop whining and get up,” she said offering him a hand, which Din instinctively took. He was pulled up by a surprising strength he wasn't expecting and in a second he was on his feet. The Mandalorian was almost as tall as he was, her body giving off an energy Din's own skin seemed to recognise, though he couldn't have explained why.</p><p>“Where are we?”</p><p>“In your mind,” the woman revealed, “I'm reaching out to you through the Force.”</p><p>Assuming she wasn't lying, did this mean Din wasn't <em>gone</em> yet? If his mind could still be reached, could he possibly still be saved? And who was this person to claim she <em>could</em> save him?</p><p>“Who are you?”</p><p>Despite everything, there was no suspicion in his question, only genuine curiosity—a bit of fascination, perhaps. He was expecting to be ignored, or a verbal response, at least. Instead, the woman did the unthinkable: she brought her hands to her helmet and simply pulled; when the helmet came off, a curtain of black hair fell around the stranger's jawline. Din's heart stopped: he knew that face, and yet it didn't look <em>right.</em></p><p>“Does this answer your question?” the woman smirked, adjusting the helmet under her arm.</p><p>Din was gaping at her, frozen on the spot. This couldn't be... it didn't make any sense...</p><p>“<em>Cara?”</em> His voice came out as a throaty gasp. It was a stupid question. She <em>looked</em> like Cara, but rationally he realised this wasn't—<em>couldn't</em> be Cara: too young, too slender, still lacking those curves that only belonged to a fully grown woman.</p><p>“You're not Cara.”</p><p>The girl giggled, and even her giggle sounded achingly like Cara's. Was he dreaming this because of his regrets? For dying without saying all the things he should have said when he still had time?</p><p>“Obviously.” The girl bit her lip, grinning. The freckles peppering her nose and cheeks were beautiful—<em>she</em> was beautiful. “Speaking of which,” she added, “she must be freaking out over your unconscious body, right now. You should go back to her quickly, yeah? She's going to be <em>so</em> mad at you when you get back.”</p><p>How did she know any of this? It had been just Din, Cara, the kid, and a dead bounty when Din had closed his eyes to open them again to this void of silence.</p><p>“Why are you in my head?” he inquired, this time with a hint of impatience that caused the girl's smirk to widen.</p><p>“It was time.” The way she raised her hand to rake her raven hair back gave Din a sense of deja-vu that made his stomach jump. “Mom told me about this dream you had once when you almost died,” she said, as if this explained anything. “You met someone like me in that dream. I had no idea when the time would come until I felt it—I felt <em>you.”</em></p><p>“You're a Mandalorian,” he breathed, trying—and not really succeeding—to reconcile the figure of one of his people with the use of the Force their ancestral enemies were so famous for. Madalorian Force users? None of this made any sense.</p><p>And yet the girl said, “Mandalorian born and raised.” The proud stance she gained elicited funny flutter in Din's chest, warm and powerful and... moved?</p><p>“Come on, old man,” she chuckled with a playful pat on his shoulder, “this is a nice reverie and all but you've got a lot to go back to.”</p><p>This was when he absently noticed the orange marks decorating her small pauldrons: a hand print on the right and another one, smaller, on the left. There was another mark on the left of her helmet, just below the eye: a tiny three-fingered print Din recognised at once. It was the same print he had felt upon his face one moment before drifting away. That, and a sudden heat upon his heart. How did this woman know the kid?</p><p>“You healed me,” he realised, “you and—”</p><p>“No,” she interrupted. “I just reached out for you from far, far away... and talked some sense into you,” she added, mirth glimmering in her black eyes. “Mom always says you need that, sometimes. Guess that was always true.”</p><p>A peculiar tingle creeped up Din's spine. It wasn't exactly a shiver... more like a <em>feeling. </em>A feeling he couldn't quite place.</p><p>“Who's your mom?”</p><p>A corner of the girl's mouth curled impishly. “Make an educated guess.”</p><p>She bent to collect his helmet from the ground, then placed it in his hands and spinned him around, shoving him forward. “Go, now. See you in a couple of years.”</p><p>“A couple of years?” Din started turning back, but the white around him was getting blinding and <em>loud.</em> The voices were returning—<em>'Din kriffing Djarin, don't you dare die on us, you stupid son of a bantha!'</em>—and the cries, and the pain, and <em>life...</em></p><p>And finally the light seemed to explode, and Din was overwhelmed by his senses turning back on all at once. The last thing he heard—or thought he heard—was a distant, muffled <em>'</em><em>Bye, Dad',</em> then the white faded into black, and he's <em>there</em> again, with Cara's arms crushing him breathless, and the kid's tears wetting his face, and the hot blood soaking his clothes, and the searing pain of the wound between his ribs reminding him that he was still wonderfully <em>alive.</em></p><p>“Cara,” he choked, inhaling her scent as though he needed that more than he needed oxygen. Even through his helmet, his lungs filled with the smell of sweat and tears, and he didn't even care about how much it hurt to just breathe.</p><p>Cara pulled back, eased him down to her lap, hands shaking. The kid was all over him before Din could even reach down for him.</p><p>“Oh, so you're not dead, now?” Cara snapped, hastily wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “What the hell was that, <em>you kriffing idiot?”</em> She hit his shoulder with the ball of her hand and winced at the strangled groan this elicited from him. She didn't apologise, though, and Din couldn't help a weak, blissful laugh. It was good to be back.</p><p>“It really is you,” he sighed. This was definitely <em>his</em> Cara: strong and soft and one of a kind.</p><p>
  <em>Except...</em>
</p><p>“Yes, it's me, and I'm so mad at you, right now!” she hissed. She had one hand around his shoulders and one still pressing against his side, even if Din was quite sure the wound was gone. Din's arm folded around the kid, who was curled tightly upon his chest, while his free hand rose to touch Cara's face, just to make sure she was real. When his thumb ghosted over the tattoo under her eye and she stubbornly turned away, sniffing, he smiled to himself. This was definitely her.</p><p>“You were gone,” she muttered. “You were gone and we couldn't bring you back.”</p><p>“It's okay,” he rasped, trying to sound reassuring. “Someone else did.”</p><p>The child's ears perked up against Din's chin.</p><p>Perplexed, Cara asked, “What?”</p><p>Din thought back at the foggy memories from his dream—the pretty Mandalorian girl in black and orange armour, her sassy smirk, her clever eyes, and her words... It was crazy to even consider it had been real. Din, however, had seen enough crazy in his life to know crazy didn't mean impossible.</p><p>“I'll explain,” he said with an exhausted, smug smile she unfortunately couldn't see. “Though I'm afraid it will only make sense in a few years.”</p><p>“Sure, I'll wait,” she scoffed, but it sounded too much like a giggle.</p><p>He told her about what he had seen and who he had met, and, predictably, Cara dismissed everything by labelling it as a delirious hallucination. There was no way Din could convince her otherwise, as of now, so he didn't insist.</p><p>He wished there was a way to see that girl again, and ask her all the questions that were bubbling up in his mind, making him dizzy with doubts and possibilities. He hadn't even asked for her name.</p><p>“Hey?” he asked while Cara was helping him to his feet.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Is there any girl name you particularly like?”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Nothing,” Din smiled, “Just getting a bit ahead of time.”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I don't know what this is, okay? I was bored at work, had this idea, opened a draft, and this is the final result. It's nothing special, I don't know why I've been so lame lately (scratch that, I know: I miss Cara and need her back. Easy peasy). Take what you get, guys, hopefully next week these two will finally see each other again and my heart will finally burst. Until then, mediocrity is what you get. Sorry.</p><p>From what I've gathered from Master Wookiepedia, Force time travels are a thing, so I guess a Force-powered conversation across time was believable. Feel free to correct me if this is bullshit.</p><p>P.S. the title is from Gabage's All the Good in This Life. (There is another song by Garbage, We Never Tell, that I kind of want to use for a fic, but I need the right inspiration, first, so help me pray all the gods out there that we're getting Cara back next episode.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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